Walmart

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT WALMART

Gregory Krikorian's opinion piece in the Dec. 18 edition of the Burbank Leader fails to factually educate the reader. Krikorian is launching his own opinion about the much lauded 250 jobs. Had Krikorian done his research, he should have told the reader that these 250 Walmart jobs are mostly part-time, poor-paying jobs. Even if these were to be full-time jobs, the workers would not earn enough to have any significant economic effect on Burbank or its residents. As far as construction jobs related to a new Walmart, these would be temporary and would do little to improve our local economy for the long term.

On Wednesday, Sept. 5 a letter was published in the Burbank Leader stating that we should forget a Walmart and that Burbank should look into a Whole Foods Market instead. Well, oppositionists blocked a Whole Foods Market from opening in Burbank years ago. As I recall, they complained of the same kind of traffic issue then as has been used in the Walmart case today. During their effort to get the city to deny the Walmart permits, oppositionists submitted a petition signed by 2,000 persons.

Gregory S. Krikorian's op-ed in the Leader (“Walmart could create 250 new jobs,” Dec. 18 ) arrived on the heels of the City Council's decision to not appeal the Los Angeles Superior Court's final ruling on the case. The city's decision to not appeal is a sound one: The judge in that case found that by issuing permits to Walmart, the city proceeded in a manner not authorized by law and materially breached its mandatory duty and obligations, and that city staff deliberately suppressed the need for certain traffic mitigation measures.

Citing street improvements more than a dozen years overdue and a flawed environmental impact report, a judge said Wednesday that Burbank officials must rescind building permits issued to Walmart to open a store in the Empire Center. “The city has proceeded in a manner not authorized by law, failed to conduct any environmental assessment when the facts and circumstances clearly require at least an initial inquiry,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Allan J. Goodman stated in his tentative ruling.

A tentative ruling that halted Walmart's plans - at least temporarily - for a store near the Empire Center was finalized Friday. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Allan J. Goodman's final judgment confirms that Burbank officials must rescind building permits issued to Walmart to open a store adjacent to the Empire Center, and set aside the California Environmental Quality Act exemption made for the project in 2012. The lawsuit was filed by three Burbank residents - Shanna Ingalsbee, Katherine Olson and Yvette Ziraldo - in an effort to block the opening of the store until street improvements outlined in an ordinance approved by the Burbank City Council a dozen years ago are completed and another environmental impact review is conducted.

Firstly, not one of us wants a vacant store. We want an environmentally responsible, financially sound, properly permitted business up and running. We'd prefer that company be one that doesn't just “fill the need” for low priced merchandise already available locally. We'd prefer the corporation value their workers so these employees can further help our economy by earning enough to spend at other businesses. We'd prefer that their wages weren't so low that tax dollars were needed for their assistance with programs like WICS.

Gregory Krikorian clearly knows how to utilize chamber of commerce corporate-speak in his defense of Walmart in the Leader (“ Walmart could create 250 new jobs ,” Op-Ed, Dec. 18), but he fails to inform the readers about the true nature of Walmart's history of exploiting workers and destroying small businesses across the United States with non-competitive and predatory business practices. Krikorian laments the vacant Great Indoors structure and claims that a new Walmart store will create about 250 jobs.

How come the citizens of Burbank could keep a Whole Foods market from coming to Main and Alameda due in part to traffic, but we can't keep Walmart out of the Empire Center area for the same reason “Walmart greenlights store,” Sept. 17)? The traffic there is bad 90% of the time now, and Victory Place is probably the roughest street in Burbank. How do you think it will be with a Walmart there? It will make it so difficult to get to some of our favorite stores, like Lowe's, Target, Michael's, Best Buy etc, and all of the good eating places.

In response to previous letters concerning Walmart perhaps opening a store at the Great Indoors property, it seems like all the people that oppose a Walmart store in Burbank are obviously not, or have ever been, Walmart shoppers. All of their negative claims against Walmart are hearsay. Walmart is really no different than Target or Kmart, so what makes them OK instead? Low wages? Chinese-made products? Nothing different than the other two stores. Walmart has all the same major brands from Revlon to Loreal, Kellogg's to Oroweat, Wrangler to Dickies, and at better prices.

In an ongoing effort for weeks, even months now, to stop a Walmart store from opening in Burbank, a select group of protesters has been waging an ongoing battle by demonstrating in front of City Hall and voicing their hatred with repetitious rhetoric in front of the Burbank City Council, week after week after week. One can't help but wonder, why do these people hate Walmart so much? What has Walmart ever done to them? Their rhetoric covers all the same bases: traffic, Chinese-made products, low wages and lack of benefits for workers.